Tag Archives: human rights-based framework

Uganda Prioritizes Voluntary Family Planning and Charts Course for a Rights-Based Approach

Reply

Blog post by Jan Kumar, EngenderHealth/RESPOND Project

The planets have aligned in Uganda over the past few weeks for a significant shift in the country’s national family planning (FP) program that sets it on a new and ground-breaking course. From July 28-30, 2014, the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH)—with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)—hosted an event titled “Accelerating social and economic transformation through universal access to voluntary family planning.” President Museveni used this opportunity to accelerate the government’s commitment to FP2020 and to voice his endorsement for FP as a means to improve maternal health, reduce poverty, and support social and economic development. The meeting paved the way for the promotion of equitable access to a wide range of quality FP services that ensure full, free, and informed choice, as well as the protection and fulfillment of human rights for all Ugandan women and couples who wish to space or limit their childbearing.

DSC_1557

Continue reading →

The Road to Implementation: A User’s Guide for Applying a Rights-Based Approach to Family Planning Programs

1

Guest post by Mariela Rodriguez, Research Associate, Futures Group

Human rights. Contraceptive choice. Access. Information. Empowerment. What do all of these things mean? How do they relate to family planning (FP)? Since the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning and the movement it initiated, FP2020, the topic of human rights and empowerment in FP has risen on the international development agenda. We know that the Summit “underscored the importance of access to contraceptives as both a right and a transformational health and development priority.”[i] But what does this mean in practice? How can FP programs turn rhetoric about rights into a reality?

The recently published Voluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect and Fulfill Human Rights: a Conceptual Framework Users’ Guide is intended for use in conjunction with the Voluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A Conceptual Framework, published in 2013 by Futures Group and EngenderHealth with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[ii] The User’s Guide is intended for use by a wide audience spanning policymakers, program managers, health providers, rights advocates, civil society organizations, donors, technical assistance agencies, implementing organizations, and researchers. The document contains three modules to orient stakeholders to the framework and to guide the processes for using it to assess, plan or strengthen, monitor, and evaluate FP programs through a human rights lens.

Continue reading →

Meeting the Reproductive Needs and Rights of Women and Girls: The Legacy of ICPD is in the Details

1

Guest post by Mary Beth Hastings, Vice President of Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)

The task of translating the International Conference on Population and Development’s (ICPD) Programme of Action (PoA) into meaningful change for women and girls globally includes some important detail work. Several years ago, my organization – the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) – set out to better define the meaning of key PoA terms. Our guiding question was: “What constitutes comprehensive, rights-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care?” We found some useful literature and human rights documents to point us in the right direction, but most importantly, we wanted to make sure our answer was grounded in the lived experiences of women and girls.

Field research in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Photo by M.B. Hastings/CHANGE

Community-based health workers in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia met with CHANGE to share their comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Photo by S. Sippel/CHANGE

Continue reading →

Getting Real on Rights: Experience from Two Country Consultations on Applying a Rights-Based Approach to Family Planning Programming

1

Guest post by Shannon Harris

Given the many challenges that countries face in providing family planning (FP) services, how can a client-centered, rights-based approach to programming help governments meet their obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill clients’ rights to meet their reproductive needs and desires? This question framed two recent country consultations in India and Kenya to explore the feasibility and desirability of applying the voluntary, rights-based FP (VRBFP) conceptual framework. Were country-level FP stakeholders—program managers, policymakers, and providers—even interested in such an approach?

With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Futures Group and EngenderHealth partnered with the Population Foundation of India and the National Council for Population and Development in Kenya to host national and regional stakeholder consultations, as well as conduct FP site visits to explore these questions. Despite diverse cultural, policy and program environments, stakeholders in both countries expressed tremendous interest in using a rights-based approach. Stakeholders found the program vision described in the VRBFP framework appealing and relevant to their programs because of its emphasis on the individuals and communities served by the FP program, while simultaneously acknowledging the importance of the policy environment and supply-side factors.

Photo by H. Connor/EngenderHealth

Members of the Futures Group/EngenderHealth rights framework team visit a community motivator in India’s Bihar State to identify the realities and challenges related to protecting and fulfilling human rights in FP at the community level—specifically to identify the conditions and practices that either uphold or violate human rights. (Photo by H. Connor/EngenderHealth)

Continue reading →

Keeping Complexity in a Human Rights–Based Approach to Family Planning: Is It Worth It?

1

Submitted by Shannon Harris, on behalf of the team led by Futures Group and EngenderHealth that developed the Voluntary, Rights-Based Family Planning Framework

Human rights–based family planning (FP) programming—what does it mean? Where do you start to translate it into practice? How comprehensive do you need to be? It is easy to become daunted by a long list of inputs and activities, such as those listed in the voluntary, rights-based family planning framework developed by a team led by Futures Group and EngenderHealth. The recent 2020 Vision newsletter refers to the overwhelming nature of existing guidance documents for ensuring that FP programs are rights-based and offers a simplified starting point. But will simplification of a complex set of challenges lead to the transformation in FP programming that our field needs?

We welcome the dialogue started by Population Action International (PAI) about how to move forward to protect and fulfill human rights within FP programs. This conversation is needed; multiple voices and views add richness to the discussion. PAI suggests starting with three priorities: voluntarism, informed choice, and achieving a diverse method mix. Certainly, we have to start somewhere, and these three elements are essential to rights-based FP— programs must be vigilant in preventing instances of coercion and in ensuring full, free, and informed contraceptive choice.

However, these program elements are not sufficient to ensure equitable access to services for all nor to ensure that the services are of high quality. They also do not address community factors that impede access to and use of FP. And they do not address the issue of accountability. These are critical considerations for reaching and fulfilling the human rights of the 220 million women with an unmet need for FP.

Continue reading →

Strengthening the Links Between Human Rights and Family Planning: An Update from Addis

Reply

Guest Post by Shannon Harris

There is greater interest and investment in family planning (FP) programs now than in the last 20 years. With this increased attention and funding, programs are also benefiting from an increased commitment to ensuring that vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations are being better served and that women are receiving high-quality services and expanded contraceptive choice. As FP reemerges as a global priority, there is more attention to the human rights that underlie providing contraceptive services to all individuals. The recently published Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) first annual progress report highlights the new Conceptual Framework for Voluntary, Rights-Based Family Planning, a tool designed to ensure that public health programs oriented toward increasing voluntary FP access and use respect, protect, and fulfill human rights in the way they are designed, implemented, and evaluated.

Continue reading →

Reviews of Evidence and Tools Support Rights-Based Family Planning Framework

Reply

In 2013, EngenderHealth and Futures Group published a new framework, Voluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A Conceptual Framework, that offers a holistic approach to realizing human rights as a part of voluntary, high-quality family planning (FP) services. The framework’s linkage of FP and human rights was informed and supported by systematic reviews of supporting evidence and available tools. The results of these reviews are now available in two companion papers:

Evidence paper CoverVoluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A Systematic Review of Evidence synthesizes the findings from a literature review of more than 290 relevant interventions, evaluations, and case studies, to engender a better understanding of the elements of a successful rights-based FP program. The report reviews the current evidence for rights-based FP and identifies practices that protect and fulfill the rights of clients and prospective FP users to achieve desired reproductive intentions.

Tools Paper CoverVoluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A Systematic Review of Tools presents an extensive review of 150 training and assessment tools, frameworks, methodologies, implementation guides, and job aids that support and promote the fulfillment of rights at the policy, service, community, and individual levels. Links to tools reviewed are provided to allow policymakers, program planners, and managers to access resources that will enable them to assess, design, implement, monitor, and evaluate rights-based FP programs.

Continue reading →

Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A New Conceptual Framework for Voluntary Family Planning Programs

1

How can public health programs oriented toward increasing family planning access and use ensure they reach as many people as possible with lifesaving contraception in a way that respects, protects, and fulfills human rights?

Today, the Futures Group and EngenderHealth launched a joint publication, Voluntary Family Planning Programs that Respect, Protect, and Fulfill Human Rights: A Conceptual Framework that presents a new framework for holistic, quality family planning (FP) programs with clients and their rights at the core. This practical framework integrates human rights law and principles with FP program and quality of care frameworks, and depicts how key concepts translate into concrete interventions, outputs, and outcomes into programming. It offers a pathway for governments and other implementing partners to fulfill their commitments to the provision of voluntary FP services that respect, protect, and fulfill individuals’ human rights as programs pursue health and development goals.

A mother and child in Mwea Village, Kenya. Photo credit: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“In the wake of the London Summit on Family Planning, we have seen a reenergized commitment among governments and donors to expand access to FP, especially under the FP2020 initiative,” said Jan Kumar, Senior Technical Advisor at EngenderHealth and one of the framework’s authors. “As this framework highlights, however, it is critical that any efforts to scale up family planning over the next decade must be met by equal attention to ensuring that programs respect, protect, and fulfill human rights and put clients’ needs and preferences at their core.”

Continue reading →